Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Chavez challenges the White House on drugs

Speaking of the DEA, the US is denying its drug war agents are spying on the Venezuelan government. Earlier this week President Hugo Chavez suspended his cooperation with US drug eradication efforts, accusing the agency of working towards undermining his government. Allegations that are given some weight by the US backing of the failed 2002 coup that succeeded in temporarily removing Chavez from power for only a couple of days before the Venezuelan people arose to challenge the coup mongers and restored him to office.

The US has long been meddling in the politics of the country, preferring to support the oligarchy who, although they only comprised a small fraction of the population, held power there for decades before Chavez gained control of the government by popular mandate. The US has seeking to undermine him ever since. It seems Chavez has got this crazy idea that the government should benefit all the people, a concept that runs anathema to Bush style empirism. Thus the White House has consistently snubbed him in affairs of state and labels him a communist and now virtually accuses him of being complicit in the drug trade.

Of course the real prize here is not drug trafficking but Venezuela's oil reserves. The country is our third biggest supplier of foreign oil and Chavez refuses to sell out his people in order to satisfy US oil lust.